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More Information about the VALUE Institute

The VALUE Institute, developed in partnership with Indiana University’s Center for Postsecondary Research, will be the long-term location for the ongoing use of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Assessment) rubrics approach and the VALUE database platform for learning outcomes assessment. The VALUE Institute assessment results will provide actionable information about your students to enhance the learning environment at your institution while providing external validation of local campus learning assessment information. The Institute also includes additional capacity building resources for faculty, institutions, and policy makers on how to use VALUE evidence to support student success and effective pedagogy, e.g. assignment design. Results can also strengthen existing programs—including transfer programs—to help students achieve and demonstrate key learning outcomes across guided learning pathways as part of general education or the majors. The following assessment and capacity building services will be available to institutions who choose to participate in the VALUE Institute:[1]

Assistance with and examples of representative protocols and sampling designs for identifying and collecting existing student work samples;

Calibration/Norming training workshops and consultations for using the VALUE rubrics for evaluating student work at your own institution;

Assessment data results, reporting and assistance with analyses and communication strategies, including disaggregation for specified populations of students, institutional type and sectors;

Examples of student work samples demonstrating different levels of achievement for the range of learning outcomes

Examples of assignments that have been identified as eliciting expected levels of student demonstrated proficiency and workshops and resources for assignment improvement (in conjunction with the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) and Lumina Foundation's Assignment Library).

Institutional results can be examined in the context of a nationwide landscape of learning across the DQP and LEAP learning outcomes, as well as a broad set of benchmarks reflective of the proficiencies demonstrated by students across higher education as they enter and progress through and among colleges and universities, specifically:

An established and tested VALUE nationwide database for benchmarking student learning

External validation of institutional assessment of student learning;

A direct assessment approach that uses existing student work from the curriculum and co-curriculum, not add-on work;

The only formative and summative assessment approach based on faculty and other educational professional judgment and evaluation of quality of student work against broadly shared standards of achievement [DQP (Degree Qualifications Profile) and ELOs (Essential Learning Outcomes)];

Robust and actionable assessment evidence that can be used by students, faculty, programs, institutions, states and consortia to enhance student learning achievement, as well as reporting for accountability and accreditation;

An ability potentially to cross-reference the VALUE direct assessments of learning with the NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) indirect measures of student learning to increase the evidence of learning;

An ability to track student learning growth and achievement over time,e.g. through guided learning pathways, and transfer between 2- and 4-year institutions, etc.

What will it cost to participate through the VALUE Institute? The VALUE Institute is a fee for service opportunity similar to the NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) model. Click herefor more information.

What will institutions receive as participants in the VALUE Institute?

Templates for reporting and displaying your institutions own results from the institutional raw data file.

How does the VALUE Institute meet institutional needs?

As of December 2015, the rubrics have been accessed by more than 42,000 individuals from more than 4,200 unique institutions, including schools and professional associations both domestic and international;

More than 3,200 colleges and universities, domestic and international, have accessed VALUE rubrics since release in 2009;

Wide use of VALUE rubrics across AAC&U’s 1350 member institutions;

The VALUE rubrics have been approved for use in meeting national standards for accountability established by the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA);

VALUE rubric assessment results are accepted in all six of the regional accrediting areas as meeting direct assessment evidence of student learning achievement;

Substantial research capacity for disaggregating data on direct evidence of learning through use of VALUE assessments that both can guide and assist those working to develop equity-minded pedagogical actions, e.g guided learning pathways, within and across institutional boundaries.

[1] Current work has been completed with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates and Spencer Foundations.